America's welfare establishment claims there is a growing demand for food and shelter among the poor and homeless, says columnist Tony Snow, but when benefits are free, demand is unlimited -- and so is the possibility of waste.

• Hunger groups recently asserted that between 2 million and 5 million children go to bed hungry each night and we waste 53 million tons of good food annually.

• The National Conference of Mayors announced in December that emergency food requests rose 16 percent last year -- the largest jump since 1992 -- and homeless shelters are bulging.

• Vice President Al Gore announced that the administration would hand out $865 million in grants to America's homeless.

They are confusing demand with need, says Snow. Requests for food and shelter may be rising, but that means they are available, not that they are needed. He points to nutrition aid as an example:

• Food stamp expenditures will rise to $26 billion in 2002 from $24 billion today, even though the number of people receiving them has plunged in just three years from 27.5 million to 21 million.

• However, as recently as 1994 the Agriculture Department (USDA) couldn't account for nearly 35 percent of all program expenditures, and people are swapping food stamps for drugs and other goods.

• Food is more affordable than ever, with USDA data showing the average family spent 10.9 percent of its disposable income on food in 1996, compared to 17.4 percent in 1960 and 24.7 percent in 1930.

• And analyst Michael Fumento of the American Enterprise Institute points out that a major problem among the poor today is obesity, not starvation.

Despite increasing employment and lower poverty rates, U.S. mayors have identified food and housing crises in each of the last 13 years.